Canva added website publishing a couple of years ago and I thought it was a reasonable option for a small local bakery that needed a simple 4-page site fast. The client had a tight budget, I knew Canva well from social media work, and the turnaround was 5 days. Everything seemed fine until the client started asking for things I could not deliver.
The limitations appeared quickly
She wanted a custom contact form that sent inquiries to 2 different email addresses depending on which service the customer selected. Canva's built-in form does not support conditional routing. She then asked for a cookie consent banner that met EU requirements. Canva has no mechanism for adding custom scripts or third-party compliance tools. By week 6 I had a list of 7 feature requests I could not fulfill without rebuilding the entire site on a different platform.
What rebuilding cost both of us
I moved the site to WordPress with a lightweight theme and rebuilt it over a weekend. That second build was effectively free work on my end because I had undersold the project scope. The client was understanding but the situation was avoidable.
Canva is genuinely good for personal portfolio pages or temporary landing pages where you control all the requirements. For any client project, spend 30 minutes listing every feature they might need in the next 12 months before choosing a platform. That conversation before the build would have changed my tool choice entirely.